Scoutmaster Musings - Hiking and Backpacking

Scoutmaster Musings

Hiking and Backpacking

We have eight scouts preparing for a 5-day backpacking trek in July. On Monday we met for some skills review. The scout that presented stove use did a great job other than turning on the gas 'before' lighting the match and leaning over the top of the stove to reach the gas valve on the far side. :-) That's the only time I intervened.

We're busy doing practice hikes and getting used to carrying backpacks. Each scout is doing the Hiking merit badge and a couple are also taking on the Backpacking m.b.

The first scout to make a trip plan for a hike used Google and mapped out our route and then saved it as a JPG image and emailed it to everyone. Pretty darn cool! It was 10.3 miles and everyone got to lead part of the way and get 1 of their 5 10-mile hikes completed.

I've added a couple PDFs to the Hiking and Backpacking merit badge pages for a Trip Plan, Time Control Plan, and Backcountry Injury Report. This might be helpful for scouts working on those merit badges.